lover
Plurallovers
- 1Someone who loves and cares for another person romantically, whether as a sweetheart, a partner, or a spouse.
The play follows two lovers from feuding families who marry in secret.
She kept every letter her lover had sent her from the front during the war.
Similarsweetheart, love
Note
The word is simply love plus the doer's -er, already lovere in Middle English. The plural can mean a couple or everyone in love at once: love is blind, and lovers cannot see the pretty follies they commit, says William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice. Because the "affair" meaning shares the word, my lover can suggest more than sweetheart does.
- 2Someone with a strong fondness for something, such as a pastime, an art, or a kind of food or drink.
As a lover of jazz, she rarely missed a show at the club downtown.
He was no lover of crowds, so he did his shopping early on weekday mornings.
Similarfan, enthusiast, devotee, admirer, aficionado
Note
The usual frame is a lover of something: a lover of fine wines, of jazz, of his own country. Its negative, no lover of, is a polite understatement for dislike, as in Herman Melville's Billy Budd, where a conscientious disciplinarian is no lover of authority for mere authority's sake. Connoisseur suggests expert judgment; a lover needs only the fondness.
- 3
Less common meanings
- 4In the West Country of England, a friendly, informal way of addressing any friend, always in the phrase my lover.
Morning, my lover! Fancy a cuppa before you head off?
"You're a star, my lover," Jen told her mate after he fixed her bike.
Note
No romance is meant: All right, my lover? is a friendly hello, and in the West Country it can be said to any friend. A listener from elsewhere should hear plain warmth in it, not the romantic meaning. The word works this way only with my and only when speaking to someone, never when speaking about them.
- 5Obsolete form of louver.
Note
This spelling belongs to a different word entirely: it is an old way of writing louver, the slatted opening that lets in air and light while keeping out rain, or the roof turret that did the same job on medieval buildings. It has nothing to do with love, and it survives only in old texts, where talk of roofs and ventilation gives it away.
Practice
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Origin
From Middle English lovere, luffer, lufere, equivalent to love + -er.